Carriers that grip the upper portions of articles to enable the articles to be lifted and carried are known, particularly in connection with the packaging of beverage cans. Clip-type paperboard carriers developed for this purpose fall into two basic design groups. In one design a panel is provided with apertures corresponding to the tops of the cans, with foldably connected tabs surrounding the apertures. The top portions of the cans extend through the apertures and the edges of the tabs engage the underside of the can chimes to support the cans. This produces an inherently weak carrier due to the fact that much of the panel is removed in forming the apertures. In addition, there is very little surface area capable of receiving printing or other graphics, and the provision of a handle for lifting the carrier further complicates the design and makes the carrier more expensive.
In the second basic design, slots are provided in a panel for receiving opposite portions of the can chimes, with adjacent panel edges resulting from the slot formation engaging the underside of the can chime portions. This is typically employed in packages comprised of two adjacent rows of cans, so that the elongated area of the panel between the interior slots folds into a wedge-shaped reinforcing rib extending between the sloped upper portions of the cans. Short side panels connect the panel to top panel flaps, which are glued to the bottom panel, and aligned finger openings in the top panel and in the reinforcing wedge enable the package to be lifted and carried. Although such a carrier provides substantially unbroken areas in the top panel for receiving printed indicia, it falls short of providing the desired level of strength and is relatively expensive to produce.
As a means of simplifying the carrier the top panel flaps could be eliminated, but this weakens the carrier since the reinforcing function supplied by the top panel flaps would be absent. It would be desirable to be able to provide a clip-type carrier which does not require top panel flaps, but which nonetheless possesses adequate strength to withstand the forces generated during lifting and carrying. Such a carrier should also be economical to manufacture, and therefore should be capable of being formed from a single unitary blank.